Chinese Payphone Instructions

With mobile phones being so prevalent it’s unlikely that you will find yourself needing to use a payphone, and even if you did, payphones aren’t difficult to use in any language. So rather than focus on how to use a phone in Chinese, this is more of a look at instructional Chinese and which words will be useful for reading other instructions:

投入硬幣（投入硬币）

插入卡片（插入卡片）

You’ve probably noticed there are two words used here for ‘insert’: 投入 and 插入, this is due to actions that are performed for each type of insert. 投入is along the lines of ‘drop in’, as the coins are ‘dropped’ into the phone, while when the card is inserted – it is slid in and sits ‘inset’ into the phone, so 插入 is used. It’s the equivalent of saying ‘drop coins in’ and ‘slide card in’ in English.